I get that Steam is where everything and everyone is at. And that the user experience and functionality is best there BUT having another player to try an compete with Steam is a good thing, right?
If anyone can try, it’s the Fortnite Bank.
So, why the hate?
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The other platforms on PC, for example Steam, itch, gog, all do better things.
Itch really supports game jams, which in turn supports smaller devs and puts out a lot of unique stuff, much of which is free. They also allow devs to choose what percent itch gets with even zero as an option.
Valve is a massive contributor to open source projects and the game dev community. They have contributed a ton to SDL which is used to make many games and engines, and Proton is rocketing wine development forward. Steam also allows adding non-Steam games and even lets you run them with Proton just as easily as Steam native games.
GoG is DRM free, enough said. That in and of itself is one of the most pro consumer stances.
The only plus for Epic is they give out free games, no other redeeming qualities or features.
Don’t forget the beauty of PC is that it’s an open platform, and Epic does nothing to support that.
Not only that, but they made the platform ever so slightly less open when they bought a bunch of games just so that they could remove them from other stores. They garner hatred because they don’t try to gain a competitive edge by being good or unique in some way, they’re just making gamers who aren’t willing to download their launcher suffer.
Sweeney (the CEO of Epic) says that he wants competition with Steam, but many of his actions point toward that he really just wants to be the guy at the top (ie, he wants to be the monopoly instead of Valve). He’s taken a fair number of anti-consumerist stances, which vary from understandable to clearly anti-competitive.
Epic is known for making exclusivity deals with 3rd party studios in which Epic bribes the studio with money, and in exchange, the studio does not release their game on Steam for 1 year.
At several points, this occurred after a studio already said that they will release on Steam, and the studio would have to walk back and delete their Steam listing.
Iirc, at one point Epic bought out a studio and had them remove the Steam listing for an already-released game, causing the game to be unplayable for people who had already bought the game
Edit: this apparently happened twice (Unreal Tournament and Rocket League), but it appears that the games still work for the people who bought it. I think the concern was actually that Steam players would lose functionality due to not being supported anymore after the unlisting
The Epic Game Store released in a non-functional state, and development on it is extremely slow. The first impression of the broken store likely still influences many people’s impression of the store. But it’s still missing many features that many gamers want to see in a store.
There were various rumors when the store first launched that it contained spyware. My understanding is that those rumors never fully got disproven, especially since some of the claims were supported by at least some evidence
Epic does not support Linux, and Sweeney has openly said that he does not plan to support Linux until it becomes more popular. He did immediately jump on board with supporting Arm though, which caused a lot of Linux gamers to think that he just doesn’t want to support Linux
Sweeney is a pretty abrasive person and iirc he made a lot of concerning statements on his social media. Several of them (as mentioned above) indicate that he wants to dethrone Valve so that he can be the monopoly instead
Overall, many gamers are in support of more competition in the game store space. Unfortunately, many gamers also think that Epic is an untrustworthy competitor, and they believe that Epic has a serious chance of making the gaming industry worse if they become more popular. As a result, many would prefer for Steam remain the monopoly rather than to take a bet on Epic.
Don’t forget about that one time Epic gave away an indie game for free… On the week it launched… Without consulting the devs.
And the entire launcher and store’s ui has been, and still is, hot, moldy, shit-smeared garbage ass.
Yeesh I knew Epic was run by dick heads but I didn’t know they were this slimy, I’m glad I’ve only bought one game on their platform (Subnautica below zero), and that’s only because I got the original Subnautica for free from their weekly giveaway and loved it. I’ll continue to get the free games from them as it’s good to take a chance on games that you otherwise might never learn about.
Don’t forget that Sweeney himself said that the Epic store is slow.
I hadn’t heard about a game being made unplayable after they bought it, that’s seriously shitty. What game was it?
For unplayable, Rocket League had very good Linux and macos native builds. Epic required them to delete support for those operating systems as part of the acquisition of Psyonix
Oh yeah, I didn’t think about that. That’s super gross.
It was a while ago, I don’t remember off the top of my head which specific game I’m remembering. Doing a brief search, it appears that this happened to Unreal Tournament and Rocket League, though it appears that the games still work for the people who bought it before the unlisting. I think the concern was losing functionality, especially for server-based or multiplayer games
Big issue for me is the direction towards incentivised exclusivity. I can tolerate it on consoles (barely nowdays) because you’re paying someone to use your hardware instead of another, and you have to specifically develop for console hardware. That takes time and effort.
Different distribution platforms do not have such issues, and I don’t want exclusivity anywhere near PC gaming, unless you’re self publishing. Frankly if they weren’t banging on about steam using the industry standard % take, while they themselves are trying to undercut and use garbage tactics, I would have absolutely no problem with them, same as Ubisoft and EA’s garbage store.
Epic makes their money off microtransaction stores and they bought exclusive rights to a bunch of titles a while back, meaning you could ONLY play them on Epic.
There are worse companies, though.
I hate it because it’s like they’re trying their hardest to make a shitty storefront.
It’s awful.
I get almost none of the information I need when on a game’s store page. Meanwhile, I get all the info I need and then some on the same game’s Steam page.
It’s like they don’t want to sell their product.
I do definitely appreciate the weekly free games. Sometimes, like this week, they have solid offerings. It’s Dead Island 2 this week, btw.
Because in 2025 people get info about games they are buying from the app store instead of twitch or YouTube or the game devs website. Give me a fucking break dude.
When I’m browsing, it’s my first stop. I want to see the minimum specs to estimate how well it’ll run, how the devs market their game at a glance, year of release, rating, etc. Then if it looks interesting it’s time for external reviews.
The only way I know anything about the games I buy is by reading the store page. If I have to go looking for the dev’s website, it’s because something has gone wrong.
I would recommend doing more research before buying, but I’m a kinda a cheap bitch
I feel like I get a pretty good idea of what a game is like from reviews and discussions.
Oh, I must have misinterpreted you. That’s about what I do.
Haha, no problem.
I don’t like the Epic Game Store because Epic has turned it’s back on Linux. Their client doesn’t run on Linux which is where I do all my gaming. I also recognize the economic fuckery they’re doing to gain popularity. They’re spending their Fortnite war chest money on subsidizing games to give them away for the purpose of monopolizing their game store. It’s not fair for other game stores like GOG who can’t just buy game licenses for everyone to become popular.
I hate console gamers as they’ve perverted the FPS genre.
another player to try an compete with Steam
Here is the mistake. It does not trying to compete. It only tries to catch as many fish in its bucket as possible, while leveraging (burning) Fortnite money.
It’s a wasted effort, and it will never come close to Steam like this. It may even die along with Fortnite, or degrade further.
Imma try to add something that hasn’t been mentioned in the top comments.
Epic’s refund policy is shit, comparable to nintendo. I buy a game, it doesn’t work, I don’t want to waste my time trying to figure out why, so I ask for refund, Epic said no. I’ve never had this problem at a physical retailer, and I’ve never had this problem with Steam.
Here are my reasons:
- no Linux support - Heroic works, why doesn’t Epic do what GOG do and revenue share w/ Heroic?
- exclusivity deals, which reduces options outside of EGS
- Epic’s anticheat works on Linux, but their own games that use it don’t, that’s a pretty big slap in the face
I certainly want more competition to Steam, but that competition needs to do something other than exist for me to use it. GOG is that, and if they properly supported Linux, they’d get most of my gaming money. But they don’t, so they only get some of it.
Yeah, this probably reads like a Linux fanboy post or something, but I’ve been using Linux longer than Steam supported it with its client, and I’ll still be here if Steam leaves. It’s my platform of choice, and a vendor needs to meet me here if they want my business. Valve did, so they get my money. I honestly don’t need much, I just need games to work properly on my system.
Competition is good, yes and no.
Exclusivity is not competition, it’s lock in for me. So epic should get it’s head out of its ass and offer games on both platforms equally. THAT is competition.
I am not a fan of steam. Not a fan of having a library that could change at anytime at anyone’s whim but mine. So I prefer gog (yes I know some titles are drm free on steam and it’s not perfect on gog either / this is just for context).
Anyhow steam is well established and forcing me to use your store and launcher will just lead to me ignoring you (doing that for origin, uplay, epic) because it’s a luxury problem.
Same with all that streaming shit. Also there are other ways if you piss off people a lot, yarr!
The companies forget who made them big. And for epic I count myself in on that massively, still owning game boxes of e.g. Xargon (look it up, and my EU? box is not to be found on ebay) and equally for EA.
And I will not stand for anti consumer behaviors. Got enough money to spend at my age but theyre not getting it like this.
Epic wants temporary monopolies and that’s already antitrust.
Epic doesn’t support my operating system.
Which operating system is that?
TempleOS
It’s very simple, valve is a gamer company. Epic is a money company. Every single thing each respective company does shows that. I’m not a bitch, I’m never going to let those Epic cunts have a penny of my money. Fucking with the games industry, fucking with gamers, locking exclusives, it’s all bullshit & they can suck my cock
Meanwhile Valve pushing
unrelatedunregulated gambling to everyone, including children, through their case unboxing systemCounter Strike is a M rated game
Oh so they have no responsibility at all then. Might as well stop checking IDs when people enter casinos or buy alcohol because they’re not supposed to if they’re underaged.
They make a deliberately addictive mechanic that they know ruin peoples’ life, and they also know they have a big young audience, but you think that’s fine? Shame of you, really.
It’s also in TF2 btw
And whatever you say, it’s still exploiting adults. In many countries, like France, casinos are legally obliged to detect addicted people, prevent minors from playing, and let people opt out legally, and never allow them to gamble afterwards. Valve blatantly doesn’t respect this and takes efforts to bypass the law. They got banned in Belgium and France, and used a legal loophole to avoid being banned in France.
You’re acting like a Valve fanboy. Be objective. Apart from that, Valve is an overall good company for the video games industry, but they act like a piece of shit in other places.
I mean… Do you support the recent proposal to ban online porn? How about alcohol?
Valve provides a game, an appropriate age rating, a description of the monetization scheme, and a way for users to freely trade items.
If minors transform that into a gambling addiction, it’s certainly a big problem, but I don’t see how that translates into “Steam bad, Epic Games good”
Do you support the recent proposal to ban online porn?
No, but that’s another subject. Not easy to regulate and is not as life threatening as many other things. We all consumed some when minors and it never was a huge deal for most people. Gambling is much worse imo, as it impacts your finance. Gambling is already banned/regulated and Valve is avoiding the current laws.
How about alcohol?
It’s already pretty well restricted for minors. The world would be better without it, but as nicotine, can’t go back now that people are used to it.
but I don’t see how that translates into “Steam bad, Epic Games good”
Never said that.
I talked about this because the original comment said Valve wasn’t here for money. Why do they push gambling then?
Parents should do their damn job and prevent their kids from playing what they arent supposed to, or teach them right from wrong.
Teens aren’t kids. Gambling is addictive to everyone.
Teens are kids, they’ve just got half a brain and adult hormones mixed in. They still need guidance and supervision.
Whataboutism makes you look like an idiot
Not OP but your very first sentence was
It’s very simple, valve is a gamer company.
It’s not “whataboutism” to directly respond to your point and try to argue they aren’t a gamer company.
I do agree with you overall though that Epic can suck it.
You’re saying Valve acts for gamers, not for profits. I’m proving you wrong. You’re just entitled and love Valve.
Wrote unrelated instead of unregulated, which changed the meaning of my sentence. Fixed it.
First, the EGS software is really bad. It’s slow, clunky, a pain to navigate, and is missing loads of basic features that Steam has had for decades.
Second, rather than improving their offering to make it more competitive and appealing to consumers, they’ve utilized coercive tactics like exclusivity to force adoption rather than earning it on merits.
It’s a bad experience overall
The UI was super buggy for me
I want all my games on Steam and to not have to install multiple apps
Tim Sweeny can eat shit.
